One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Cult-TV Movie Review: Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976)

Well
-- look indeed -- at what has
happened here.

Basically,
a brilliant, disturbing horror film about a woman who feels she doesn’t control
her own life has been transformed into a cheap-jack, shlocky 1970’s horror TV-movie.

Look
What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby aired originally on ABC, on October 29, 1976, and attempted to
continue the story of Rosemary and her son, Adrian/Andy. But the effort is
mostly forgotten by modern audiences.

At
the very least, this telefilm isn’t often considered a worthy heir to the 1968
film.

If
you’re like me, however, you may have -- at times -- wished for a sequel to
Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). That film ended with several important
questions unanswered.

For example: what
would Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) do next, having mothered the Anti-Christ?

Would she kill her child, or would she raise him, and attempt to impart some
humanity to him via her maternal drive? Or would Rosemary simply steal the child and run away,
attempting to escape the Coven run by the Castavets?

And
what of the boy? Would he follow the path of nature (following in his father’s
footsteps), or the path of nurture (represented by his Mom?)

Ira
Levin, author of the novel, Rosemary’s
Baby, wrote a sequel to his story in 1997 called Son of Rosemary, to offer
some answers.

And
then you have this TV movie, which dramatizes a different story all together.

Neither
sequel quite lives up to the feelings of sheer paranoia and helplessness
transmitted in the original Polanski film. The core problem with Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Babyis
that it blatantly lacks the artistry of its predecessor, and -- because of its low-budget -- can’t take advantage of the inherently intriguing aspects of the
story. Wouldn't you like to see what a grown up Anti-Christ can do to his enemies?

I know I would.

In the case of this film, however, Andrew/Adrian causes a few road accidents, and that's about it.

So
if we “look” at “what’s happened” to Rosemary’s Baby, we can see that the
source material has been degraded in virtually all regards.

“They
want to be turned on by the far out.”

Rosemary
Woodhouse (Patti Duke Astin) cares of her young son, eight-year old Andrew --
the Anti-Christ, -- under the watchful eyes of the Coven, led by Minnie
Castavet (Ruth Gordon) and her husband, Roman (Ray Milland).

The
boy is sensitive and, boasts the capacity to do both good, and evil. Seeing that -- at
least to some extent -- Andrew possesses free will, Rosemary flees the coven with
him. Unfortunately, one of his first
acts outside the Coven’s care is to murder a group of children who torment him.

Meanwhile,
the Castavets use Rosemary’s ex-husband, movie star Guy Woodhouse (George Maharis) to track the fugitives
down, and re-capture the boy. In Nevada,
Rosemary ends up trapped on a bus while a hooker named Marjean (Tina Louise) now
in league with the Coven, raises the boy in her absence

The
years pass, and Andrew becomes a young man. He has only one friend, a drop-out
from divinity school named Peter (David Huffman). Andrew is into music, but is often in trouble with law too. As his 21st birthday, the Coven plans
a ritual in which -- if Andrew is evil enough -- Satan will take his body and
soul, and become manifest on Earth.

That
doesn’t happen, however, and sometime later, an amnesiac Andrew tells his story to a
nurse (Donna Mills). Although Andrew
doesn’t know it, she is the grand-daughter of the Castavets. She seduces Andrew so she can carry his seed -- the seed of the Anti-Christ -- to term.

“Win
a few, lose a few…”

Look
What’s Happened toRosemary’s Baby
is, most intriguing, perhaps, for its unusual three part structure. Each of the three pieces of the film are
titled like the Bible, with a specific person’s name (think: The Book of Ruth, The Book
of Joshua, etc).

In
this case, we get The Book of Rosemary first, then the Book of Adrian, and
finally, the Book of Andrew. The obvioius inference here is that we are reading/watching/learning from the Evil Holy
Book, (well-after Roman’s Year One, no doubt…), and that it’s a mirror image of
The Bible. Light has had its day (2000
years), and now Darkness, and its messiah, shall have its span.

The down-side of the intriguing structure involves character and time. We don't spend enough time with Rosemary to get effectively re-acquainted with her. And we don't meet Andrew/Adrian as an adult until the second act.

Beyond
the original structural conceit, this TV movie sadly has very little to recommend
it, alas. The only cast member from the Polanski
film who returns is Ruth Gordon, playing quirky Minnie Castavet. All the other replacements are mostly inferior selections

.

Ray Milland is much more overtly sinister in the role of Roman Castavet than quirky Sydney Blackmer was, in the 1968 version for instance.
The result is that a level of nuance is lost, and the character seems
more cartoon-like in this iteration. There's menace, but no subtlety to the menace.

Patti
Duke Astin doesn’t connect well as Rosemary, either, playing mostly hysteria
and panic. Her best moment as Rosemary involves the story she tells to her son,
about a prince who has two fathers. Her dramatic line reading (which recurs in
the epilogue) is, at least, soulful. Frankly, Patti Duke Astin isn't in the telefilm long enough to make the role her own, and successfully erase the memory of Mia Farrow.

The character of Guy
Woodhouse -- who peddled his wife's flesh to the devil -- undergoes a major development in this film, essentially redeeming
himself in the last act, but the teleplay provides George Maharis no key moment
to explore the motivations behind this change of heart.One moment Guy is killing an innocent (Peter)
in service of the Coven, and the next he is seeking to murder the Castavets’
grand-daughter, the new receptacle/vessel for the Anti-Christ. Why the change of heart?

Of
all the performances, Stephen McHattie’s -- as Andrew -- fares best, perhaps
because he musn't contend with invidious comparisons to other actors in
famous roles. McHattie does a solid job of excavating Andrew’s central
conflict, and choice. Andrew is a man who is
lost, and uncertain of which road to take.

It’s
just a shame that McHattie must undergo a scene here in which he is made-up
to look like a mime, and then undergo a seductive kind of dance (on the night
of his birthday) in white pancake make-up. It’s impossible to escape how
strange the slow-motion casino dance sequence in mime make-up is, even forty
years later. I readily admit I don't know much about devil worship, but I wager that mime make-up isn't an essential ingredient.

The
movie has other problems too. First, Rosemary gives birth in 1969, or thereabouts, and
so Andrew can’t turn 18 or 21, until the late 1980's or early 1990's.

However, there is no visual indication of
time passing at all. The whole movie --
which encompasses decades -- is set in the seventies, at least in terms of
fashion, cars, hair-cuts, and so forth. And folks who were elderly in 1968 -- Castavets -- look exactly the same in what would be the mid 1990's. A deal with the Devil, I guess?

Another,
perhaps larger problem, is that Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby
features no elaborate death scenes or set-pieces. The whole thing is such a low-budget,
low-intensity affair that the most response is boredom. The movie is
slow-going, with very little to recommend it in terms of meaningful action. Now, I am currently reviewing all of these TV-movies because they prove, on many occasions, that imagination can trump budgetary concerns. But this telefilm doesn't find any creative visuals or symbolism with which to vet its tale.

In
1976, just a few months before this TV movie aired, a new horror franchise
about the Anti-Christ was dawning. It
began with Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976). This sequel to the Polanski classic feels
very much like as thought it is trying to cash in on the popularity of that film. The Omen, however, was renowned for
its graphic violence and death scenes.
This movie may feature the Anti-Christ, but he doesn’t use his powers
very often, except to kill bikers and bullies. He's an under-whelming presence.

To
treat the rich, layered world of Rosemary Woodhouse -- so memorably imagined by Polanski
and Levin -- as just another devilish cash cow to compete with The Omen is, perhaps, the ultimate betrayal of Rosemary’s
Baby’s legacy.

1 comment:

John, I have seen the intense original Rosemary’s Baby’s 1968 film and this sequel is disappointing without the right script and more original cast members, i.e., Mia Farrow. I think it was set in 1966 so that Adrian due date was 6/66. This sequel should have been done as a feature film as 2010(1984) was for 2001(1968). However, even as a telefilm it needed a well written script to go with a bigger budget.

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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